Reinheit Carpets Quotes

Language," I admonish him. "The dirtier the better," he says, loving it. "All she knows is we're talking about carpets. Speaking of carpets ... " His eyes drift down to my jeans. ~ Karina Halle

The age that had had the confidence and power to smash these lines through its own capital had apparently balked at tweaking God into compliance. Like the Islamic carpets that contain a deliberate flaw, the avenue was disrupted by the Divine. ~ Will Wiles

Nobody tortures people at home. It ruins the carpets. ~ T. Kingfisher

Orlando, to whom fortune had given every gift
plate, linen, houses, men-servants, carpets, beds in profusion
had only to open a book for the whole vast accumulation to turn to mist. The nine acres of stone which were his house vanished; one hundred and fifty indoor servants disappeared; his eighty riding horses became invisible; it would take too long to count the carpets, sofas, trappings, china, plate, cruets, chafing dishes and other movables often of beaten gold, which evaporated like so much sea mist under the miasma. So it was, and Orlando would sit by himself, reading, a naked man. ~ Virginia Woolf

Oh and I've been wanting a word with you too, Arthur," said Mr. Crouch, his sharp eyes falling upon Mr. Weasley. "Ali Bashir's on the warpath. He wants a word with you about your embargo on flying carpets." Mr. Weasley heaved a deep sigh. "I sent him an owl about that just last week. If I've told him once I've told him a hundred times: Carpets are defined as a Muggle Artifact by the Registry of Proscribed Charmable Objects, but will he listen?" "I doubt it," said Mr. Crouch, accepting a cup from Percy. "He's desperate to export here. ~ J.K. Rowling

I sleep with my feet on moss carpets, my branches in the cotton of the clouds. ~ Anais Nin

Airport carpets are so much richer to both the senses and the intellect. ~ George Pendle

Funny way to get to a wizards' school, the train. Magic carpets all got punctures, have they? ~ J.K. Rowling

Red carpets and dressing up are a part of work that I enjoy less than some people. ~ Sally Phillips

I need a night out away from crayon drawings on the wall, mushed food in the carpets, and poo-splosions in nappies. ~ K.M. Golland

Yeah, right. Instead of watching TV, we'll practice our weird magical powers. Great. What's next? Zooming around on flying carpets? ~ Malia Ann Haberman

I have read that the finest Persian carpets would have one strand deliberately left astray, to avoid the sin of pride that perfection might bring. ~ Ivan Doig

We may yearn for rustic detail and old-world charm, but those who have it set their minds on vinyl wallpaper, fitted carpets and all mod cons. ~ Tahir Shah

Look at a Segway and tell me it's not the world's shittiest witch's broomstick. We only wanted jetpacks because we couldn't make magic carpets work. ~ Warren Ellis

I feel like I'll never get over red carpets. They're so bizarre and awkward. ~ Adam Driver

I have been collecting pictures of airport carpets since the early 2000s because I am fascinated by their role as the world's largest interior visual design medium. ~ George Pendle

If my career isn't going that well, I'd rather it flounder than desperately trying to show up on red carpets: 'I'm for hire! Remember me!' ~ James McAvoy

I love taking advantage of red carpets. ~ Kiersey Clemons

In her minds eye she sat there, in the domesticated golden sunlight on the velvet sofa, lapped around by carpets and books and mahogany, solitary and content, as if, in fact, cloistered. ~ Jane Smiley

Just just because there are flaws in aircraft design that doesn't mean flying carpets exist. ~ Ben Goldacre

Let us remain childlike and not childish in our 20-20 vision, borrowing such telescopes, rockets, or magic carpets as may be needed to hurry us along to miracles of physics as well as dream. ~ Ray Bradbury

I spent an hour looking at pots and carpets in the museums the other day, until the desire to describe them became like the desire for the lusts of the flesh. ~ Virginia Woolf

I'm not invited. I'm not on the A list, haven't been on it in 20 years and my feet have never trod its red fluffy carpets. ~ Nick Mancuso

If airports can be seen as temples to travel, gateways to other worlds, then airport carpets are the vast prayer mats upon which we all genuflect. ~ George Pendle

Dear Gaffsie, believe me, we are so very small and insignificant, and so are our tea cakes and carpets and all those things, you know, and still they're so important, but always they're threatened by mercilessness. ~ Tove Jansson

I think a lot of kids I've met in L.A. trying to act want to escape working long days and think acting is all photoshoots and red carpets. ~ Kiersey Clemons

Diogenes, filthily attired, paced across the splendid carpets in Plato's dwelling. Thus, said he, do I trample on the pride of Plato. Yes, Plato replied, but only with another kind of pride. ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

In spring, nature is like a thrifty housewife ... taking up the white carpets and putting down the green ones. ~ Mary Baker Eddy

I'm all about my rugs. I don't like a lot of color. The apartment isn't exactly monotone, but it's full of very soft shades. So, really, the fun is with the carpets. ~ Nina Garcia

I have money. I have properties I didn't buy, cars and carpets, antiques and jewels-and none of them means a damn to me if I don't have her. So-give me a number. ~ Emma Chase

If books were Persian carpets, one would not look only at the outer side. because it is the stitch that makes a carpet wear, gives it its life and bloom. ~ Rumer Godden

One of the best parts about my job is that I get to dress for red carpets and appearances, and I often forgo working with a stylist because fashion is half the fun of any event! ~ Mary Lambert

Oh, yeah, I like a high neck. And I like naked backs. It seems very sexy. Red carpets are about being a bit theatrical - having fun rather than being too safe. You have to be brave. Fashion is fun. ~ Eva Green

However, just like any line of work, writing is a negotiation, and creative control is as elusive as financial stability. I discovered that writing could be like cleaning carpets or working in a factory: just a meaningless production of words. ~ Alice Driver

Most of the passenger cars are lined with thick patterned carpets, upholstered in velvets in burgundies and violets and creams, as though they have been dipped in a sunset, hovering at twilight and holding on to the colors before they fade to midnight and stars. ~ Erin Morgenstern

I hated being photographed and never wanted to go on red carpets, even though they always asked me to. My place was behind the scenes. I wasn't a diva. I preferred to look at life from the outside. ~ Giovanna Cau

No voice comes from outer space, from the folds of dust and carpets of wind to tell us that this is the way it was meant to happen, that if only we knew how long the ruins would last we would never complain. ~ Mark Strand

As late as the seventeenth century, monarchs owned so little furniture that they had to travel from palace to palace with wagon-loads of plate and bedspreads, of carpets and tapestries. ~ Aldous Huxley

She hated funeral homes with their thick carpets and elegantly appointed decor. She would much prefer an all-out Irish wake where everyone drank too much Guinness and brawls broke out. That's how the dead should be honored- with life and all of it's warts. ~ Elizabeth Meyette

My days could be described as an ever changing palette of blues, greens, browns, and golds. Mostly because of surfing and garden-gazing. On tour, the colors are desaturated by florescent lights and dull grey carpets. ~ Jason Mraz

I can certainly be part of the socialite group and walk those carpets every day, but I choose not to because I prefer to be grounded. You can't be at home and on the red carpet. ~ Sandra Lee

My steps were muffled. It was quiet, so quiet that I felt as if I did not walk but instead crawled in silence. The snow covered everthing and I walked above cotton, on silent carpets, on beach sand. Softness is temporary and deceiving. It gently receives you and gently expels you. ~ Rawi Hage

It may be that actual tears have stained the tile floors or soaked into the carpets of such places. It may be that these tears can never be removed. And everywhere the odor of melancholy, that is the very odor of memory. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

The doors had not two, but four shutters of paneled teak so that in the old days, ladies could keep the bottom half closed, lean their elbows on the ledge and bargain with visiting vendors without betraying themselves below the waist. Technically, they could buy carpets, or bangles, with their breasts covered and their bottoms bare. Technically. ~ Arundhati Roy

It's weird doing red carpets; it's uncomfortable. But you can have a sense of humor about it. ~ Kirsten Dunst

I have never felt 'fat;' I just didn't realise how unhealthy I was until I look back at pictures. In the moment, I felt so beautiful, and I remember walking down red carpets with my make-up done in a little sparkly dress, and I thought I was so cute. ~ Khloe Kardashian

Every time I walk down one of those red carpets, you think I'd be used to it after all these years, but it's like it's happening for the first time. ~ Jeff Bridges

[on going to Sunday school:] It looks like rain, and I hope it will rain cats and dogs and hammers and pitchforks and silver sugar spoons and hay ricks and paper-covered novels and picture frames and rag carpets and toothpicks and skating rinks and birds of paradise and roof gardens and burdocks and French grammars before Sunday school time. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

I am sent on assignments just like guys. I have covered presidential campaigns, natural disasters, tragedies, red carpets, medical stories and more. ~ Megan Alexander

I love having my hair and makeup done for red carpets, but to have that done every day would be exhausting. ~ Carrie Underwood

Rage, or something as equally dense and seething, was hanging from every chandelier, resentment woven into thick carpets padding the room, hatred flickering underneath every lampshade. The floor bathed in a creepy shadow, a particular darkness that had seeped into the walls, and right now was rolling across my converse so I couldn't see them. Absolute darkness. ~ Kami Garcia

An indescribable sadness emanated from the white splendour of the staircase and balustrade; the blood-red, now almost black splendour of the carpets. The huge palms in their huge pots looked like they had recently arrived from the cemetery. Their dark green leaves also looked blackish, like wizened, perished weapons from olden days. ~ Joseph Roth

If it was up to me, I would just wear jeans and t-shirts, even to red carpets, but then no one would photograph me, so that would make me very sad. So you know, I've gotta keep up with the rest of the female population and sometimes try a little harder. ~ Shakira

I'm a chick, I love clothes, and I'm also in the entertainment industry, so I've done a lot of photo shoots, video shoots, red carpets. So I learned very quickly that fashion is going to be and will be a big part of what I do. ~ Avril Lavigne

My husband and I are either going to buy a dog or have a child. We can't decide whether to ruin our carpets or ruin our lives. ~ Rita Rudner

If you could imagine the color of anger, it had been splashed over every wall. Rage, something dense and seething, was hanging from every chandelier, resentment woven into thick carpets padding the room, hatred flickering underneath every lampshade. The floor was bathed in a creeping shadow, a particular darkness that had seeped up into the walls ... ~ Kami Garcia

I travel in gardens and bedrooms, basements and attics, around corners, through doorways and windows, along sidewalks, over carpets, down drainpipes, in the sky, with friends, lovers, children and heros; perceived, remembered, imagined, distorted and clarified. ~ Tom Robbins

I heard voices outside our front door - a woman's, bright as polished brass, and a man's, low and dark like the wood of the table I was working on. They were the kind of voices we heard rarely in our house. I could hear rich carpets in their voices, books and pearls and fur. ~ Tracy Chevalier

The problem: affordable housing has to be subsidised, if the 'affordable' bit of the phrase is going to work. The solution: replace every wall, ceiling and floor with a gigantic plasma screen and charge for advertising space. The affordable living room of tomorrow is a futuristic cube with a perpetually looping Go Compare commercial in place of carpets and wallpaper. ~ Charlie Brooker

I'm not a stray," he said. "I'm. Not. Right. In. The. Head." He jabbed his temple, and the bump on my own head seemed to throb. "I'm fucking rabid and mangy, and I'll piss all over your carpets if I stick around long enough. I'll take what you give me, but I'm not nice, Adrian. ~ C.M. McKenna

IN EUROPE, I vomited into small buckets and brushed my teeth repeatedly with chalky British toothpaste. I lay prone on the bathroom floors of several museums, feeling the cold tile underneath my cheek as my brain liquefied and seeped out my ear, bubbling. Migraines left my blood spreading across unfamiliar hotel sheets, dripping on the floors, oozing into carpets, soaking through leftover croissants and Italian lace cookies. ~ E. Lockhart

Red carpets seem so glamorous, but you're really just standing there sweating and worrying your hair is going to fall. And in the end, people are only going to see one picture of you. You just smile for one second and then you walk over to the side and check your phone. It's pretty weird. ~ Morgan Saylor

This carpet," said Abdullah, "unlike you, is of an ensorcellment so pure and excellent that it will listen only to the finest of language. It is at heart a poet among carpets."
A certain smugness spread through the pile of the carpet. It held its tattered edges proudly straight and sailed sweetly forward into the golden sunlight above the mist. ~ Diana Wynne Jones

The heart of Paris is like nothing so much as the unending interior of a house. Buildings become furniture, courtyards become carpets and arrases, the streets are like galleries, the boulevards conservatories. It is a house, one or two centuries old, rich, bourgeois, distinguished. The only way of going out, or shutting the door behind you, is to leave the centre. ~ John Berger

I've walked with very famous people down red carpets over to the crowd of thousands of people, and you'll reach out to shake their hand and they've got a camera in their hand. And they don't even get their hand out, because they're recording the whole time. ~ George Clooney

I always say as a celebrity you have two choices - you can be a celebrity, or you can be a role model. You can choose to just go to parties and do the red carpets and all that, or you can choose to be an example to these people. ~ Amber Riley

If I hadn't had a baby, a part of me thinks I might have turned up on the red carpets all the time and gone, 'Hi, it's me!' Maybe other people do it because they haven't got kids and they've nowhere else to be. But because I have, I don't feel like that. ~ Catherine Tate

If I look back, my mother was always out. I can remember the perfume and her scarlet chiffon dress and crystal beads, going to a party. She used to play her violin at restaurants later on in life and at old people's homes. She loved the races, which she used to take me to as a child: our carpets were bought with her winnings. Loved her chickens. ~ Celia Imrie

Alex was raised in this house along with his sisters, Katherine and Cecile. Their world was this house, with its mahogany globes the size of cantaloupes on the newel posts of every stairway, with wedding cake plaster on the ceilings, the wainscoting in the parlor and the library, and antique Persian carpets of red and purple and blue and gold on the wide plank floors, rugs knotted by little hands that had long since turned to dust. ~ Chase Novak

Towles burn. Bathroom inferno! Chanel No. 5, it burns. Oil paintings of racehorses and dead pheasants burn. The reproduction Oriental carpets burn. Evie's bad dried flower arrangements, they're these little tabletop infernos. Too cute! Evie's Katty Kathy doll, it melts, then it burns. Evie's collection of big carnival stuffed animals - Cootie, Poochie, Pam-Pam, Mr. Bunnits, Choochie, Poo Poo and Ringer - it's fun-fur holocaust. Too sweet. Too precious. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Because he did have that gift, truly he did, he was the Man of a Thousand Voices and a Voice. If you wanted to know how your ketchup bottle should talk in its television commercial, if you were unsure as to the ideal voice for your packet of garlic-flavoured crisps, he was your very man. He made carpets speak in warehouse advertisements, he did celebrity impersonations, baked beans, frozen peas. ~ Salman Rushdie

To handle that stardom, the red carpets, the photo shoots, people all of a sudden recognizing you and following you in everyday life, it's a bit weird. It's strange, and it can have funny effects on you in terms of do you like it or don't you like it. Some people run away from it, some people embrace it; I found a good middle ground. ~ Roger Federer

I've had a lot of glamour come my way in the last 10 years - you know, movie stars and mansions and red carpets and trips to Europe and crazy stuff I never would have imagined - and I look at them as if I'm the bartender in the corner of the room. They've never gone into my psyche. I look at them with distance, and wonder. ~ Andre Dubus III

It was not perhaps my business to observe the mystery of his bearing, or search out its origin or aim; but, placed as I was, I could hardly help it. He laid himself open to my observation, according to my presence in the room just that degree of notice and consequence a person of my exterior habitually expects: that is to say, about what is given to unobtrusive articles of furniture, chairs of ordinary joiner's work, and carpets of no striking pattern. ~ Charlotte Bronte

I know it is more agreeable to walk upon carpets than to lie upon dungeon floors, I know it is pleasant to have all the comforts and luxuries of civilization; but he who cares only for these things is worth no more than a butterfly, contented and thoughtless, upon a morning flower; and who ever thought of rearing a tombstone to a last summer's butterfly? ~ Henry Ward Beecher

The Omanis had feasts called haflas where they'd bring a goat in and cook it in the fire. It was always a fantastic gathering. They'd turn up in their Land Cruisers in the middle of nowhere, put the carpets out, and start a fire up. Sometimes they'd tow in a small water bowser as well. There was a huge amount of ritual involved; the animal was treated with immense respect before it was killed, in accordance with Islam. ~ Andy McNab

Killing the Demon right now? What would she do with a decomposing Demon corpse stinking up the place, his blood ruining the carpets? Sure, she could use the fridge to store the corpse, but what about all the food?
Until she found a way out of this hell hole, the Demon would have to remain breathing. Damn it.
"I'm Galen by the way. Galen Darvyn."
And now she knew what name to carve on his tombstone, handy. ~ Jane Cousins

What horror to awake at night
and in the dimness see the light.
Time is white
mosquitoes bite
I've spent my life on nothing.
The thought that stings. How are you, Nothing,
sitting around with Something's wife.
Buzz and burn
is all I learn
I've spent my life on nothing.
I'm pillowed and padded, pale and puffing
lifting household stuffing
carpets, dishes
benches, fishes
I've spent my life in nothing. ~ Lorine Niedecker

All Romani dialects – about 60 in all - contain Armenian words, proof if you will that the Lom Bosha passed through Armenia in the early 11th century, trading spices along the Great Silk Road, that network of ancient trade routes connecting China with the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The Romani traded Armenian carpets, silk, dyes, lapis lazuli and tin, and it's no surprise that five capitals of Armenia are on The Great Silk Road. ~ Karl Wiggins

As Nouri entered the sacred space, he could feel his breath catch and a shiver run down his spine. The floor was lined with fine woven carpets, the walls were graced with filigreed windows, and the dome - which spread out over their heads - was richly painted with flowers and leaves and suns and moons and stars. But what thrilled Nouri the most was the fact that wherever he looked - on the walls - on the doors - on the frieze that ran in a circle beneath the dome - were the most exquisitely calligraphed words. ~ Michael Golding

The old marchioness had him tracing down bed hangings and carpets for her. Send that. Be here. To her, all the world was a menial. If she wanted a lobster or a sturgeon, she ordered it up, and if she wanted good taste she ordered it in the same way. The marchioness would run her hand over Florentine silks, making little squeaks of pleasure. "You bought it, Master Cromwell," she would say. "And very beautiful it is. Your next task is to work out how we pay for it. ~ Hilary Mantel

While we were walking around, we came to the Catholic church, and we saw that some people had set fire to carpets and banked them around the rectory, which was made out of wood. They knew every fire truck on the South Side was going to be in the park, that the rectory would just burn to the ground. Our one little act was putting out that fire. ~ Sara Paretsky

They basked in the righteousness of the poor and the exclusiveness of the downtrodden. Let the whitefolks have their money and power and segregation and sarcasm and big houses and schools and lawns like carpets, and books, and mostly
mostly
let them have their whiteness. It was better to be meek and lowly, spat upon and abused for this little time than to spend eternity frying in the fires of hell. No one would have admitted that the Christian and charitable people were happy to think of their oppressors' turning forever on the Devil's spit over the flames of fire and brimstone. ~ Maya Angelou

If I could, I would not do anything else. I'd just be in the studio for my whole life. I would never go to parties, events, and red carpets. I would rather just be in the studio for the whole time. I don't even care. Nobody has to know what I look like. I just want to make music. ~ Ariana Grande

We need this city to actually live up to its name-The City of Angels. We need to spread our wings. We need to show that we are more than red carpets, we are more than Hollywood, that we are a city ourselves of open arms. We are a city of generosity and compassion. ~ Maria Shriver

Twice ten fat oxen to the ships she sends; Besides a hundred boars, a hundred lambs, With bleating cries, attend their milky dams; And jars of gen'rous wine and spacious bowls She gives, to cheer the sailors' drooping souls. Now purple hangings clothe the palace walls, And sumptuous feasts are made in splendid halls: On Tyrian carpets, richly wrought, they dine; With loads of massy plate the sideboards shine, And antique vases, all of gold embossed (The gold itself inferior to the cost), Of curious work, where on the sides were seen The fights and figures of illustrious men, From their first founder to the present queen. ~ Virgil

Fourteen is the age when time first starts to make its presence felt. Time took on such a variety of hues in those days that even my frozen mind sometimes reflected the colours of the world around me, and I could feel my thoughts fluttering in the humid, salty breeze. At such moments, when the brilliant blue skies, the flaming carpets beneath the Gulmohur trees in the school grounds and the nut-brown twinkle in Sonia's eyes splashed into the moments of my life, I felt alive. Only time had no colour in the library. In the library, time simply ceased to be. ~ Indu Muralidharan

Between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon, I broke into a total of six offices, one penthouse suite and a small bank, and cursed them all. I cursed the stones they were built on, the bricks in their walls, the paint on their ceilings, the carpets on their floors. I cursed the nylon chairs to give their owners little electric shocks, I cursed the markers to squeak on the whiteboard, the hinges to rust, the glass to run, the windows to stick, the fans to whir, the chairs to break, the computers to crash, the papers to crease, the pens to smear; I cursed the pipes to leak, the coolers to drip, the pictures to sag, the phones to crackle and the wires to spark. And we enjoyed it. ~ Kate Griffin

I open the gallery door, walk in with that sinking feeling I always have in galleries. It's the carpets that do it to me, the hush, the sanctimoniousness of it all: galleries are too much like churches, there's too much reverence, you feel there should be some genuflecting going on. Also I don't like it that this is where paintings end up, on these neutral-toned walls with the track lighting, sterilized, rendered safe and acceptable. It's as if somebody's been around spraying the paintings with air freshener, to kill the smell. The smell of blood on the wall. ~ Margaret Atwood

Diogenes, in his mud-covered sandals, tramps over the carpets of Aristippus. The cynic pullulated at every corner, and in the highest places. This cynic did nothing but saboter the civilisation of the time. He was the nihilist of Hellenism. He created nothing, he made nothing. His role was to undo - or rather to attempt to undo, for he did not succeed in his purpose. The cynic, a parasite of civilisation, lives by denying it, for the very reason that he is convinced that it will not fail. What would become of the cynic among a savage people where everyone, naturally and quite seriously, fulfils what the cynic farcically considers to be his personal role? ~ Jose Ortega Y Gasset

It was a common complaint amongst the Arts students that their library was in dire need of refurbishment. To call the old building shabby chic was being kind. It didn't have automated stacks or self-service machines like the Management and Sciences library the other side of campus and the carpets and bookcases looked like they were probably the Victorian originals.
But on days like this one, where the springtime sunshine streamed in through the high windows and set the dust motes dancing, Harriet sincerely felt that those BSc lot could stuff their vending machines and state of the art study pods. The Old Library was clearly suited for those who had poetry in their souls, rather than numbers in their heads. ~ Erin Lawless

Perverse times have come
The mystery of the Beloved to reveal

Crows have begun to hunt hawks,
Sparrows have vanquished falcons.
Horse browse on rubbish,
Donkeys graze on lush green.
No love is lost between relatives,
Be they younger or older uncles.

There is no accord between fathers and sons,
nor any between mothers and daughters.
The truthful ones are being pushed about,
the tricksters are seated close by,
the front-liners have become wretched,
the backbenchers sit on carpets.
Those in taters have turned into Kings,
The Kings have taken to begging.
Oh Bullah, comes the command from the Lord,
who can ever alter His decree?

Perverse times have come,
The mystery of the beloved to reveal ~ Bullhe Shāh

See?" my mother would say, smiling at me and my sister, Carol, in turn. "We live in the greatest country on earth. See how lucky we are?"
And yet the ash continued swirling down, and the smells of death came through the windows, crept under the door, hung in our carpets and curtains, and screamed of her lie.
Is it possible to tell the truth in a society of lies? Or must you always, of necessity, become a liar?
And if you lie to a liar, is the sin somehow negated or reversed?
These are the kinds of questions I ask myself now: in these dark, watery hours, when night and day are interchangeable. No. Not true. ~ Lauren Oliver

are not to have, in any object of use or ornament, what would be a contradiction in fact. You don't walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You don't find that foreign birds and butterflies come and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls. You must use,' said the gentleman, 'for all these purposes, combinations and modifications (in primary colours) of mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discovery. This is fact. This is taste.' The ~ Charles Dickens

You come to this place, mid-life. You don't know how you got here, but suddenly you're staring fifty in the face. When you turn and look back down the years, you glimpse the ghosts of other lives you might have led; all houses are haunted. The wraiths and phantoms creep under your carpets and between the warp and weft of fabric, they lurk in wardrobes and lie flat under drawer-liners. You think of the children you might have had but didn't. When the midwife says, 'It's a boy,' where does the girl go? When you think you're pregnant, and you're not, what happens to the child that has already formed in your mind? You keep it filed in a drawer of your consciousness, like a short story that never worked after the opening lines. ~ Hilary Mantel

With no small amount of trepidation, we walked alone past a colony of black-faced monkeys we'd been told were extremely dangerous. We avoided eye contact and certainly didn't take pictures. And dearly wished our old Sherpa bag-carrying matey was nearby. We visited Gandhi's tomb. We saw saris being printed and hand-knotted carpets being fabricated and negotiated a decent price for a small hand-crafted rug of Mughal design that, as long as we keep the certificate of authenticity safe, should appreciated in value. We witnessed poverty beyond poverty, with 'untouchables' so poor that they are actually outside the caste system, and who can't even afford to live in the unsanitary slums described as 'unfit for human habitation. ~ Karl Wiggins

We, with our propensity for murder, torture, slavery, rape, cannibalism, pillage, advertising jingles, shag carpets, and golf, how could we be seriously considered as the perfection of a four-billion-year-old grandiose experiment? perhaps as a race, we have evolved as far as we are capable, yet that by no means suggests that evolution has called it quits. in all likelihood, it has something beyond human on the drawing board. we tend to refer to our most barbaric and crapulous behavior as "inhuman," whereas, in point of fact, it is exactly human, definitively and quintessentially human, since no other creature habitually indulges in comparable atrocities. this negates neither our occasional virtues nor our aesthetic triumphs, but if a being at least a little bit more than human is not waiting around the bend of time then evolution has suffered a premature ejaculation. ~ Tom Robbins

Ruskin's interest in beauty and in its possession led him to five central conclusions. First, beauty was the result of a number of complex factors that affected the mind both psychologically and visually. Second, humans had an innate tendency to respond to beauty and to desire to possess it. Third, there were many lower expressions of this desire for possession (including, as we have seen, buying souvenirs and carpets, carving one's name on a pillar and taking photographs). Fourth, there was only one way to possess beauty properly, and that was by understanding it, by making oneself conscious of the factors (psychological and visual) responsible for it. And last, the most effective means of pursuing this conscious understanding was by attempting to describe beautiful places through art, by writing about or drawing them, irrespective of whether one happened to have any talent for doing so. ~ Alain De Botton

Aureliano Segundo was deep in the reading of a book. Although it had no cover and the title did not appear anywhere, the boy enjoyed the story of a woman who sat at a table and ate nothing but kernels of rice, which she picked up with a pin, and the story of the fisherman who borrowed a weight for his net from a neighbor and when he gave him a fish in payment later it had a diamond in its stomach, and the one about the lamp that fulfilled wishes and about flying carpets. Surprised, he asked Ursula if all that was true and she answered him that it was, that many years ago the gypsies had brought magic lamps and flying mats to Macondo.
"What's happening," she sighed, "is that the world is slowly coming to an end and those things don't come here any more. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Just as when we step into a mosque and its high open dome leads our minds up , up , to greater things , so a great carpet seeks to do the same under the feet .Such a carpet directs us to the magnificence of the infinite , veiled , yet never near , closer than the pulse of jugular , the sunburst that explodes at the center of a carpet signals this boundless radiance . Flowers and trees evoke the pleasures of paradise, and there is always a spot at the center of the carpet that brings calm to the heart. A single white lotus flower floats in a turquoise pool , and in this tiniest of details, there it is : a call to the best within , summoning us to the joy of union .in carpets , I now saw not just intricacies of nature and color , not just mastery of space , but a sign of the infinite design . In each pattern lay the work of a weaver of the world, complete and whole ; and in each knot of daily existence lay mine . ~ Anita Amirrezvani